Spy and Medic: Tips to Newbies

Didn’t realise that this hadn’t been posted! D: The original thread asked for tips which would not immediately be obvious to new players, and so I donated the below. Please feel free to comment with any you think that I have missed!

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Medic:

As a medic, try to stay out of the firing line of the enemy. You need to stay alive to protect your team.

As a medic, your medigun will heal teammates who have been out of combat longer three times faster; this increased healing rate is called Crit Heals. Remember this when the enemy team is waiting to respawn!

As a medic, be constantly healing someone! You build ubercharge while healing, a very powerful offensive weapon and also useful safety net if things go bad.

As a medic, you’ll build uber faster on non overhealed teammates. Once you’ve overhealed one teammate, switch to another!

As a medic being chased by a scout, backpedal rapidly while firing your syringes at him. It should mildly increase your chances of survival as the scout is delayed, giving you more time to find a teammate.

As a medic, in general the best classes to uber (in order): Demoman, Soldier, Pyro, Heavy. Do not take this advice at face value; who you should uber entirely depends on the situation.

As a medic in the setup round, try to overheal everyone equally.

As a medic on a map without a setup round, overheal the demoman on your team first so he can sticky jump to the objective quicker.

As a medic, if you find yourself in a tough situation where you or your healee are near death, but you’re not quite at uber, don’t spamclick m2; just press and hold and it will pop the second you acquire it.

As a medic, if you are as risk of dying and you have an uber ready, it is always better to activate it than to die. Your teammates will understand if you thought you would be dead otherwise; a medic without uber is better than no medic.

As a medic, jump and crouch if a soldier shoots at you to rocket surf away from harm.

As a medic under uber charge, remember to look around you; tunnel vision is commonplace while under uber, and there could be a scout right behind you waiting to give you both barrels as soon as it ends.

As a medic, call out any threat to you which isn’t being dealt with.

As a medic, try to heal your teammates evenly; give priority to those on red health, then to those injured (below max), then to those not overhealed.

As a medic, don’t use the quick-fix unless you’re the second or third medic on your team. Overheals are useful to the point of game deciding.

Spy:

As a spy, running and cloaking or feigning is better than getting a lucky stab on an enemy who is aware that you are a spy.

As a spy, disguising as the class you just backstabbed will appear less suspicious to any enemies nearby.

As a spy, tell your teammates which enemies are on low health, so they can prioritise them.

As a spy, if an enemy is low on health and there is little threat, shoot them! Go for an amby headshot to make sure they die.

As a spy, if going for a stab ‘n’ sap, strafe around the sentry to make sure it doesn’t shoot you.

As a spy using the dead ringer, the enforcer has no downside (as of 31/3/12). However, this does not necessarily make it the best gun for the situation.

As a spy using the invis watch, a large ammo pack will fill your whole cloak meter, a medium pack will fill 50% and a small will fill 25%. With the dead ringer, a large or a medium ammo pack will fill 35% and a small pack will fill 25%.

As a spy behind enemy lines, steal ammo packs and health boxes to hinder the enemy, or to delay the upgrades of the enemy engineer(s)

As a spy, take careful note of which players on the enemy team pay attention; some enemies will be able to hear your invis watch decloak, whereas others won’t bat an eyelid as your uncloak your dead ringer behind them. Knowing the proficiencies of your enemies will allow you to prioritise, pick off stragglers, and judge risks before you go for a stab.

As a spy, prioritise medics with ubercharge of 75%+; they are ever so slightly less paranoid about spies backstabbing than if they are 100% charged

As a spy who can’t break through into the enemies lines, take out your gun and start shooting.

As a spy, if among your teammates then press – to disguise as a friendly to avoid suspicion. Spies are a high priority target, and will draw fire from enemies, which you want to avoid if standing by teammates (especially vital ones, such as medic). However, if in an open area, a DR spy can draw sniper/soldier/demo fire by acting like a blatant spy, and using the DR feign to cross enemy lines.

As a spy, before crossing enemy lines, visualise where you would like to end up decloaking, and find out if there are enemies there. If you cannot find out easily, take a weighed judgement as to whether anyone will be around to see you uncloak.

As a spy, the dead ringer will be active almost immediately after pressing m2.

As a spy, do not trust the raised hand backstab animation if the target is spinning around.

As a spy, the spycicle makes a quiet but distinctive hissing noise if you are set alight. A sharp eared pyro can easily hear this. Additionally, a backstab will cause another distinctive freeze/cracking sound.

As a spy using the spycicle, be aware that paranoia from the enemy team is greatly increased due to the ice statues dotted around the landscape. These enemies are more likely to spy check.

As a spy who is about to uncloak, make sure you look in every direction before you uncloak to make sure nobody (of consequence) can see you doing so.

As a spy using the dear ringer, change disguise after every feign to avoid suspicion.

As a spy trying to get a backstab on an enemy (usually heavy) who knows you are a spy where running is not an option; strafe around the enemy while constantly stabbing at him. You will eventually wear him down with normal stabs, and may even get a lucky backstab too.

As a spy, press B while disguised to have your disguise change weapon (to the slot you are currently holding; i.e pressing B with sapper out will switch to secondary). Many people do not know that you can have your secondary weapon out as a spy.

As a spy being chased by a pyro or other class you can’t get a backstab on, pull out your gun and shoot at them as you try to escape. At the very least you will have weakened them for your team to mop up.

As a spy, avoid wearing flamboyant unusuals or brightly coloured hats; they stand out in a crowd, and once the enemy team know what hat you wear, they will be on the lookout for your noticable features.

As a spy, don’t use the big earner; the costs vastly outweigh the benefits.

As any class, if being healed by a medic or if in the vicinity of a medic, avoid using any health packs unless vitally important. Medics will rarely have other medics around to heal them if they get damaged.

And finally:

As a spy, don’t use the cloak and dagger. Ever. I mean it.

Other important tips that come up in the tips bar, which newbies seem to miss:

As a pyro, right click on a burning teammate to extinguish him. You get points!

As a pyro, right click on an incoming rocket, sticky or pipe to push it away.

As a sniper, jarate will extinguish both you and your allies, and can be combined with the bushwacka for a crit melee on an enemy.